the disaster event
by lead me to salvation
Summary: /or throughout history, the von Trapp family make it through. A series of oneshots. AU.
1. Sumatra, Indonesia, 1883

**A/N yet another AU, or this time a series of AUs. I like writing about natural disasters, especially since I've just spent the better part of a term studying them in school - so I'm sorry about how gloomy this is! If you have any prompts/disasters (natural or manmade) you'd like me to write, drop me a review/PM. Enjoy! Sorcha xox**

* * *

 _Sumatra, Indonesia, 1883_

There has been smoke around the island of Krakatoa for as long as she's lived there, well, all three months of it. Every morning she gets up out of the cold sheets and looks out of the window, down the rolling hills to the sea, wishing she could see his ship on the ever-shifting green-satin horizon, a faint dot of hope, but every morning there's nothing. She knows this is normal, honestly, he'd told her about it when he'd married her and the children seem calm enough but today there's a quiet, well-restrained fear thrumming in her bones.

They've started to celebrate on the beach again. She can see the people weaving across the pale sand like honey-bees drunk on nectar, the fires burning in homage to the great gods making the distant mountain bellow. Is it just her or does the sky look blacker this morning?

"Mother?" There's a faint rap at the door, and Maria turns to see Liesl there, clutching her silken robe around her and her braid falling across one smooth white shoulder.

"Yes, darling?"

"When will Father be home?"

"I don't know, Liesl," Maria says, sitting down on the bed and patting the space beside her. "Soon, I hope. The eruption is making me nervous."

"Me too," Liesl confides. "I had to tell the little ones that there was just a silly monster making a fuss inside it but I'm so _scared_ Mother, Father and Rolf are on that ship and they have to sail right past the volcano to get back from Java…"

"Your father is a very sensible man and a very experienced captain," Maria reassures her. "He'll be fine."

"I'm just…"

"I know, I know. How about we go and practise our music, yes and see if Frau Schmidt will let all of you children help her to bake something?"

"Yes, Mother." Liesl doesn't sound convinced, but she gets up in a swishing of pink and long blonde hair. Maria goes back to watching the volcano out of her window.

* * *

Looking back, Maria wishes she'd had the seat at the head of the table. If she had, she would have been able to see it first, she would have been able to spare the boys and little Marta that sight. In the end she knows it wouldn't have made any difference.

They were sitting quietly and eating their luncheon when the first of the explosions shook the house, the island, the world, shattering their eardrums. Gretl, Marta and Louisa screamed, and Kurt dropped his knife and fork. Maria took a deep breath and turned to look out of the window. Another explosion, and then another, a trail of them darkening the day and sending shockwaves through her veins.

"Go into the sitting room with Frau Schmidt," she says, trying very desperately to hang on to the last vestiges of her calm. "I'll be there in a second."

They go, the littlest ones still crying, and Maria sinks to her knees, murmuring a pray over again. _Hail Mary full of grace, hailMaryfullofgrace HAIL MARY FULL OF GRACE_ and when she opens her eyes, the enormous wave is massing on the horizon and before she can do anything it curls back like a serpent and slams into the shore, metres and metres below. She hears the screams of her stepchildren from the sitting room and curses herself for sending them there, to a room with a view of the mountain, a view of the sea.

She kneels there in abject horror, staring down the hillside at where the town used to be, at the heaving, whirling brown water and all of her being is thanking God for letting Georg rent this house at the top of a hill. Georg. Georg, oh god, if he were anywhere near that mountain, he…no…no…

Dizzy whiteness spins at the edges of her vision, and the children are crashing through the door, her command to stay in the sitting room completely forgotten. They fall into her and that's where they stay, watching as their world sinks beneath the surface of the sea.

* * *

The next few days skip and drag by in her memories. As soon as the water recedes, their neighbours are descending on the house to help – the young woman alone with her husband's seven children – and discuss what on earth they do. The more adventurous souls head down into the ruins of the town to hunt for survivors, and before she thinks, Maria offers up their house as a makeshift hospital.

It fills within hours, people white and shaking, people clutching stumps where limbs used to be, people gibbering at the way the sea snatched their loved ones from between their very fingers…Maria doesn't know if this hell will ever end. She and Liesl and Louisa and Friedrich help as best they can and Frau Schmidt looks after the little ones upstairs. Maria desperately tries not to think of Georg but his face floods behind her eyes every second of every day. Is he alive? Oh God, if you have any mercy, say he's alive!

One day, possibly a week, possibly two after the waves, Maria is tending to one of the young women whom her neighbours found floating out at sea, clinging onto a piece of wreckage when she hears a scream from the hallway.

"Give me one moment," she tells the girl, and gathers up her skirts, dashing to the door. Liesl is on her knees, embracing a very, very blonde head of hair, and Maria's heart stops dead in her chest as she sees the person standing above his daughter and smiling that faint, grim smile.

"Georg," she whispers. He looks up and his face lights. She sees his mouth form her name. He looks exhausted, bruises gathering under his dirty skin and a cut on his cheek, but that doesn't stop him from catching her as she flings herself into his arms and holding her so tightly she can barely breathe. "Oh god, I thought you were dead, I thought you were…" her breath hitches on a sob. "I can't believe…oh thank God."

He rests his face in her hair, slumps into her arms. Behind her, she can hear Liesl whispering to Rolf, and the gazes of their straggling little band of rescuers and nurses. Reluctantly she pulls away and turns to face them.

"Back to work," she says, wiping the relieved tears from her cheeks and gripping Georg's hand. They disperse, and she turns back to smile at her husband, reaching up to cup one hand around his cheek. He turns his face to kiss it, and it hits her then; no matter what life chooses to throw at them, they'll always make it through.


	2. New Jersey, 2001

**A/N** more of a manmade disaster here, but a disaster nonetheless. I'm aware that this is a very sensitive topic, and I hope I've done it justice - and I guess it should be in memory of all those affected by the attacks. Sorcha xox

 _New Jersey, United States of America, 2001_

"They're about to start the boarding now," his voice crackles down the phone. "Liesl and Friedrich just want to say hello to you and then we're going to have to go."

"Mm-hmm," Maria says, precariously balancing the phone between her ear and her shoulder, elbow deep in snowdrifts of cloudy white suds that float up her arms. "Have a safe flight. I love you."

"Love you too. Here they are."

"Mom!" Liesl's voice is less crackly than Georg's. "How are you?"

"Washing up," Maria tells her, stacking another dish on the tottering tower of plates and bowls in the drying rack. "The amount of mess your siblings make is quite extraordinary."

"Well there are seven of us."

"Eight, soon. I don't know what it's going to be like having another little monster running around the place. Are you excited?"

"Mom how can you even ask that?" Friedrich's cuts in. "Recording deal. San Francisco. It's a shame you and the others can't come too."

"Well you know. I'm just too fat to be allowed on a plane. Good luck darlings. I'm sure you'll all do fantastically."

"Thanks Mom."

"Here's Dad again," Liesl says and Georg is back on the phone, muffled, as though he's holding it miles from his mouth.

"Look go on, and get our seats, I'll be right there…are you alright with that Liesl? Yes, I'm just going to say goodbye to your mother…Maria, darling, I'll phone as soon as we've landed. Keep safe."

"You know I will. I love you."

"That's the second time you've said that in five minutes."

"Only because I want to keep reminding you."

He sighs, and she can almost imagine the air rushing out of his lungs like a warm breeze, the way it sounds when it's just the two of them, on their swing-seat in the back porch with the summer falling in swathes across the trees.

"I'm a lucky man."

"That you are, Captain von Trapp."

"I love you. We'll see you soon."

"Bye."

The phone cuts out, and Maria leans against the sideboard, feeling the baby kick her hard in the ribs. "Yes, darling," she says out of habit, hand going to the roundness of her stomach. "Daddy will be home soon."

* * *

She's just home from dropping the children off from their various daytime adventures (if one can even called kindergarten and junior high an adventure), and she finds the vanilla yoghurt she's been hiding from the kids in the back of the fridge and puts on the TV.

Nothing prepares her for the sight that greets her as the black screen flickers into life. Fire. Towers. Smoke billowing and the grim grey-faced anchor-man who looks as though all the life has been sucked out of him. "Nothing has yet been confirmed but we believe a plane has crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City…"

Maria stands, sock-footed on the carpet, yoghurt completely forgotten. Even the baby stops kicking as the shock breaks over her head like a wave, shattering into a million pieces and pouring down her spine. Then…Georg…Georg and Liesl and Friedrich are…they're on a plane…right now… _no, no, no…._ they've only just set off from Newark Airport, that flight could have been theirs…no…

The ring of the doorbell jars her out of her stupor and she backs towards the front door, never taking her eyes off the TV screen. When she unbolts it, she's immediately met with the fierce embrace of her next-door neighbour, perfume and crisp blonde curls scratching her nose.

"Elsa?"

"Oh, Maria, I just saw the news and…"

There's a yell from the TV and both women turn just in time to see the second plane collide into the South Tower in an enormous ball of flame.

* * *

They end up sitting on the sofa, eyes glued to the television. Elsa has Maria's hands grasped tightly in hers…although they have never really seen eye to eye over many things, Maria appreciates the fact that she doesn't have to be alone, alone with this horror-movie situation playing out right in front of her eyes.

It's forty minutes later that Maria's phone rings. She fumbles about for it, almost dropping it several times, even though she's a hundred per cent sure it's the schools' parent phone tree to tell her to come and collect the children. The smiling face on her contact screen shatters her heart, and she presses the answer button. They must just have gotten delayed. Not taken off because of all this happening.

"Mom?" It's Liesl.

"Liesl, honey, what's…"

"Mom, I'm scared, they've taken over the plane and it's shaking up and down and Dad's gone to see if he and some of the others can wrest control but I think we're going to die…"

"What? Liesl…"

"They hijacked it about ten minutes ago and I think they said there's a bomb on board bur Dad doesn't think it's true…"

"Where's Friedrich?"

A tearstained little voice answers, "I'm here, Mom…" and Maria feels a scream building in her chest. Elsa reaches out to grab one of her hands, and Maria clings to it, holding onto to those manicured fingers with all the strength she has.

"Okay, just breathe. Breathe. You're not going to die, I promise, Dad will sort everything out, you know he always does and…"

"Some of the other people on board say there's been other attacks…"

"Yes," Maria finds herself confessing against her better judgement. "World Trade Center in New York."

"Oh god, Mom, Mommy, the plane's shaking…it's shaking up and down and…."

"Breathe, Liesl, Friedrich, breathe, my wonderful, brave children, I love you so much, so very much…"

Another voice joins them on the end of the line and Maria fights back the torrent of tears that are threatening to drown her. "Maria? It's me."

"Georg….Georg, what's happening?"

"Stay calm, alright, stay calm. Some men…I don't know, they sound Arabic, they've hijacked the plane and we're doing all we can to stop them but it doesn't look good…"

"You can't die, please, don't die…no…"

"Maria, listen to me. It's going to be alright. Everything in my will has been left to you. Look after all of the children for me, and tell the baby about us, okay? I love you, I love you, I love you…"

There's the sound of something shattering. Maria's fingers are turning white. Surely this is the sort of thing that happens to other people. Surely this isn't the sort of thing that happens to someone like her, to an ex-postulant turned au-pair who married her employer, surely this must be a nightmare and any second now she'll wake up, wrenching her mind from this horrible moment and hopefully forgetting about it forever…

There's a long beep and then she hears the explosion.

"I love you," she whispers, and the phone goes dead.

* * *

It takes fourteen years before they build the memorial, but somehow, Maria thinks, standing in the field where her husband and her daughter and her son met their deaths, that long wait has been worth it. The children – not so much children, anymore; she only has thirteen year old Rosa at home now that the others have gone off to college, gone off to the rest of their lives that pool out into the sunset – gather around her as they stand in front of the marble wall. Rosa traces the names of the father and siblings she never met reverently as Marta and Louisa lay the flowers. Lilies – Liesl's favourite. Her old boyfriend and his wife and their two children whisper in a huddle, a respectful three metres away.

"I miss them so much sometimes," Gretl says, and Maria puts an arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer.

"So do I. But we carry them in our hearts, remember? They wouldn't have wanted us to be sad for too long."

"Can you imagine Dad seeing the album we put together?"

"Or the time we sang for the memorial service on the tenth anniversary?"

Maria tries to think about the good things – how she can hear their names without wanting to cry now and how the children are living, not weighted down by the past – rather than the fact that none of them can bear to set foot on a plane or that she still talks to Georg and sets a place for him at the lunch table when Rosa is at school.

"They would be so proud," she says. With a last, lingering look at the names, black as cinders against the milk-white marble, she turns, avoiding the boulder where the plane is said to have crashed.

"Let's go home," Marta says, and Maria allows her children to lead her away. _Thank you Georg,_ she whispers as they bicker over who will be driving who back to the hotel. _Thank you for everything._


End file.
